It appears that the Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard is to receive a refresh in the near future, and subsequently move onto version 3.0.

Dubbed SuperSpeed USB, the third major incarnation of the serial bus standard is set to deliver data transfer speeds of around 4.7Gb/s - ten times today's 480Mb/s limit.

The new spec will be compatible with older USB 1.1 and 2.0 products, cables and connectors, and you can see from the diagram of the standard connector how that's achieved: the extra pins are placed behind the USB 1.1/2.0 ones. USB 3.0 connectors and receptacles will be deeper than the current ones.An initial USB 3.0 spec is due to be reviewed later this month. The full USB 3.0 specification is expected to be completed by the end of June 2008.

According to our source the version 3.0 connector made an appearance at this years CES 2008, but unfortunately, was not shown in action.